Saturday, January 10, 2015

GI Joe: A Real American History - Part 5

GI Joe History - The Death and Rebirth of Cobra The Death of a NationThis is the part where things get really ugly. When I last wrote about my weird twisted alt universe, Cobra was all but defeated. The upper echelon had been scattered or captured. Cobra bases across the world were attacked and destroyed, often with minimal resistance.Cobra Commander was missing, presumed dead after the destruction of the orbiting Cobra space station. In victory, the GI Joe team became overconfident, assuming their superior forces was the primary reason for the collapse of Cobra. Unless it was planned by Cobra Commander and his most loyal officers. (blah, blah, blah)I started writing this series last summer right before going back to work. It's taken quite a while for me to get back to it and I really don't feel the excitement that I did when I first started. So this idea has just stalled. My original idea was that Cobra basically went underground and started infiltrating American society, digging into areas of politics, law enforcement, the judicial system, and the entertainment. Cobra eventually became somewhat legitimate, disrupting American society from within while actively pursuing military conquests from a huge base established in Venezuela, which had become basically a puppet country run by Cobra forces.Things have changed in my weird GI Joe world over the past several months, somewhat influenced by politics and world events. Plus there's the whole idea that the stories of the original ARAH GI Joe line are pretty much rooted in the 1980's. The original characters were also portrayed as Vietnam era veterans as well. That just doesn't work in terms of the modern versions of the characters.So why not just pick up the whole concept of "GI Joe versus Cobra" and dump into the 21st century? My goal now stands to rewrite the past 15 to 20 years and work in the "rise" of Cobra in the 21st century. Much has been influenced by GI Joe Renegades and Retaliation, perhaps even a dash of Resolute as well.Stay tuned, my loyal reader(s), hopefully this should be interesting. And hopefully not so drawn out like my past writing efforts.